Suncor to push forward on ethanol plant
Suncor Energy Products said today it has received final approvals from both the Ontario and federal governments regarding its construction of a $120-million ethanol production facility in Sarnia-Lambton. The facility should be finished by mid-2006, the company said.
This is great news for the local community there. Dozens of jobs will be created and, once the facility is up and running, it will require 20 million bushels of corn annually from regional farmers. That corn will be turned into 200 million litres of ethanol each year.
Ontario last November mandated a 5 per cent ethanol blend in gasoline by 2007, but since 1996 Suncor has voluntarily sold ethanol-blended gas in the province. Not only is ethanol made from renewable resources, it’s also a much cleaner-burning fuel than gasoline or diesel. Gas with a 10-per-cent blend of ethanol has been known to cut particulate matter in half and reduce smog-producing emissions by as much as 25 per cent.
One potential problem sparked by the government mandate is the lack of ethanol production in the province, resulting in the need to import the substance. Hopefully Suncor and others can quickly ramp up to meet the growing demand.
Makes me wonder what ever happened to Iogen Corp. of Ottawa. It had plans to build a “cellulose” ethanol plant using its proprietary technology, which converts wood waste and crop residue (husks, leaves, straw, stalks, sugarcane bagasse) that would otherwise be burned or composted into ethanol. By using waste material, it can lower its ethanol production costs. It has also figured out how to burn byproduct “lignen” resulting from its production process to generate electricity for its facility.
Iogen had plans to build a 200 million litre plant out west, and possibly another in Ontario, but I haven’t heard much from them. Too bad, the technology looked promising and appeared to present the cleanest and greenest way to produce ethanol.
Tyler Hamilton is editor-in-chief of Corporate Knights magazine and a business columnist for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper. In addition to this Clean Break blog, Tyler writes a weekly column of the same name that discusses trends, happenings and innovators in the clean technology and green energy market. This blog is a personal project started in April 2005. It is not an official blog of the newspaper.
